[Lexicog] Re: lexical phrase

[Sebastian Drude]

John,

as far as I see, there is a misunderstanding here, a confusion between 
*form related meaning composition* and *purely semantic meaning 
composition*.
Lexemes (or other lexical units, depending on your terminology, entities 
that are in the lexicon of a langauge and should be treated in a 
dictionnary) may have a meaning that can be analyzed, such as, a classic 
example, the meaning of _to_kill_ as "cause to enter the state of being 
dead".  But still they are lexemes, as the composition of their menaing 
is not related to the structure of their form, so you cannot arrive at 
the meaning of the whole by functions that operate on the meaning of 
smaller units contained in the form.

This is the type of composition that the others are talking about over 
and over again -- the meaning of _on_the_other_hand_ etc. cannot be 
constructed by functions that operate on the meaning of _on_ and _the_ 
and _other_ and _hand_.  Therefore, the meaning (originally a 
metaphorical use) has been lexicalized and you should consider the whole 
thing, formally at least similar to a prepositional phrase, as a lexical 
unit.

It is, in my terminology, an idiom, such as _kick_the_bucket_ 
(http://www.idiomsite.com/kickthebucket.htm), which once had a literal 
meaning being composed of the meaning of _to_kick_ and _bucket_, but now 
just meaning "to die", without any action of cicking and any bucket 
present.  This being an idiom (special type of lexeme, lexical unit) 
does note preclude that its meaning can be analyzed into "enter into the 
state of being dead" or something similar.
_kick_the_bucket_ is now, as a whole, a single lexical unit, a verb, 
with usual verbal forms (_kicks_the_bucket_, _(has)_kicked_the bucked_, 
_will_kick_the_bucket_, ...).  It only formally still resembles the verb 
phrase or whatever you call this construction.
In the same sense _on_the_other_hand_, in my understanding, is a lexical 
unit, in this case, a conjunction (or an sentencial adverb, depending on 
your theory and analysis; in amy way, belonging to the same category as 
_nevertheless_ or similar units).  As such, it is not surprising that it 
does only have one invariant form, different from the verb 
_kick_the_bucket_.

Best, Sebastian



 
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